Make the desired changes, then click OK to set the preferences or Cancel to exit without changing your preferences.

Graphics tab

Controls user interface size and the quality of the Viewer's graphics.

Quality and speed

Choose among four preset graphics levels, with increasing level of detail and more computer power needed: Low, Mid, High, and Ultra. For High and Ultra, you need a computer that meets or exceeds the System Recommendations.

Apply

Apply UI size settings. Other graphics settings preview live as you change them.

Reset

Reverts to the recommended preset, based on what Second Life detects your graphics card to be, on the Quality and speed slider.

To make avatar physics movement smooth, move the slider to a high setting.

To make avatar physics less taxing for your computer, move the slider to a lower setting. Avatar physics movement will be less smooth, and you will not see avatar physics movement of avatars who are far away.

To turn off avatar physics, move the slider to the lowest setting.

Draw Distance

Affects how far out from your viewpoint objects are rendered in the scene. Increasing this can substantially slow down your performance in dense areas, so experiment to find the right balance.

Max Particle Count

Sets the maximum number of particles you're able to see at once.

Max # of non-impostor avatars

Sets the maximum number of avatars that are displayed in 3D instead of 2D. Decreasing this number can increase performance, but can also make more avatars around you look less realistic.

Post process quality

Sets the resolution with which glow effects are rendered, which tends to be a minimal difference

Mesh detail

Sets the amount of detail or number of triangles used in rendering certain elements. A higher value takes longer to render, but makes these objects appear with more detail.

Objects - More detail is especially noticeable with curved objects which require many triangles to render like "sculpties" (sculpted prims), spheres, and wheels.

Flexiprims - Controls the smooth motion of flexible primitive objects, as commonly used in avatar hair, skirts, capes, and so on. More noticeable when there are many flexiprims onscreen.

Trees - Affects the detail of Linden "system" trees, not to be confused with Resident-trees made using objects.

Avatars - In addition to rendering avatars more realistically, this also sets the distance at which avatars become Avatar impostors. Lower this to make them become impostors nearer, which looks worse but results in faster performance.

Terrain - Increasing this makes the ground mesh look more organic and curvy.

Sky - Only changes the sky's detail when Atmospheric shaders is on. Lower settings can make the sun and cloud formations look blocky.

Avatar rendering

Sets options that affect how the Viewer renders avatars:

Avatar impostors - Renders distant avatars cheaply, often resulting in substantial performance gains in large crowds. Unless you dislike the way it looks or have other problems, leave it on.

Hardware skinning - Provides a slight performance boost. This is incompatible with some hardware, so if if it's not already grayed out yet avatars appear jagged or deformed, try turning this off.

Avatar cloth - Makes your avatar mesh clothing ripple in the wind. Not available on all hardware, notably Macs because of Apple's drivers.

Terrain detail

High is possible on supported systems, Low makes the ground look fuzzy but renders faster.